Who knew dancing could help people? Well, at least that’s what is happening in Elite Beat Agents-one of the most fun games I’ve played. From Nintendo and developer Inis, this is a rhythm game that is one of my favourite DS games. It looks great, sounds terrific, is challenging and has lots of content. So I highly recommend that if you have a DS, you go out and get a copy of this.

-(The Story)-
You are the Elite Beat Agents-the agents who help people in need by dancing. Basically, if people get in unfair or ludicrous situations (like an ex-baseball player is about to see a giant golem who came to life eat an old fan of his), they simple shout HEEEAAAAALLLP! Then they come to help out by dancing. It’s crazy, but it’s a great set-up for an outstanding game.

-(The Controls)-
Throughout the whole game, you’ll use the DS stylus to play. It’s super easy; you basically have to hit notes when they come on the screen. That is about it. So basically if you see a note on the screen, you just tap the note when needed and there you have it. Sometimes you’ll have to hold down the stylus to do this long note, or rapidly spin the stylus around the screen like a spinner. It’s really easy and the controls are responsive as well.

-(The Gameplay)-
Elite beat Agents is a rhythm game, like Guitar Hero or Amplitude. You choose a song and have to hit the notes when they come onto the screen. In EBA, you have to hit notes when a circle around the note comes in contact with the note. You can hit it slightly earlier, but you’ll get fewer points. You can’t hit the notes too late though. At the top of the screen there is a meter called the elite-o-meter. This is telling you how you’re doing. Hitting notes keeps it at the top, but missing notes causes it to lower. If it’s at the top, you’re doing great, but if it’s lower it means you’re failing. If this meter drops to the bottom, it’s game over. The beats are well placed; they don’t feel odd or indifferent to the song playing in the background. It can feel a bit slower if you’re on the easier difficulty though.

There are three different types of notes in EBA. There’s the standard type of notes, which you simply have to tap the note. Then there’s the Elite Phase Notes, where you have to tap the note, then hold it down and move it along the shown path. If you can keep it on the path then you’ll get points. If you let go by accident, if you have time you can jump back on. Then there’s the Elite Spin Markers. Basically, you have to spin your stylus in circles until you’ve done it enough. Get more in and you get bonus points. With the standard notes, you can hit notes in combos to get more points. They all have to be the same colour to get the bonus though.

The main meat of the game comes from the single player mode. There are two difficulty levels-Crusin’ and Breezin’. Breezin’ is easiest, and I advise you start here otherwise you’ll suck! The mode basically gives you a world map with people who need your help. These are songs you can play. At the beginning, you’ll only have one song, but after you’ve finished that, the songs start to pile up. Here’s how a song in the single player mode works: you choose someone to help. Let’s say for example the first song-a teenage babysitter who is falling for an American football star. They get a day along, or so they think but then a mother comes round with her kids (who should be on Supernanny), dumping them on the babysitter. Then when they start to cause chaos, the football player says “it’s them or me” and then the babysitter screams (rather loudly) HEAAAAALP!

Then that’s your cue to come and help. The songs work like I mentioned before, but here events happen depending on how well you’re doing. If you’re Elite-o-meter is good, then the good event will happen, but if not then a bad event will happen. When you get to the end of the song, it’s make or break! If you do well then you’ll pass, but if not then you’ll lose. Most of the people only have one song, but right at the end there were two (insanely hard!) songs, which I still have a hand cramp from :(

Speaking of which, the difficulty level in the game will be quite hard for casual rhythm gamers like me. If you’ve never played a rhythm game before, this isn’t the place to start. But if you’re a seasoned rhythm gamer, this should be fun for you. Also, adjusting from hitting notes with buttons to tapping notes took some adjusting to, but it was okay once I did. I did get frustrated a couple of times (especially at the end of the game when it was warm, my hand was killing me and I needed the toilet badly) but it didn’t make me too crazy. And still, once I got used to the game I played through again and noticed I had really improved, so maybe it’s just getting used to touching notes. Overall, the single player was a really enjoyable experience and great for unlocking songs, and the situations in the game were definitely humorous, if not hilarious.

After you’ve spent a good seven hours with the single player, you can move onto multiplayer-the most fun part of the game. You’ll have two modes of play, co-op and vs, and both are really fun. You can play with only one DS cartridge and, like most of the multiplayer games, setting up was easy. Co-op play is like most of the co-op multiplayer modes, you work together to play. Basically, two players dance together, hitting different coloured notes. One will hit the red notes and the other will hit the grey notes. You both share the same elite-o-meter, so working together is important. If one of you is good and one of you sucks, then you may struggle. Vs mode splits four people into two teams. Basically, the team who hits the notes quickest and fills their meter first will win. There are also bonuses, which are basically when you fill up these stars at the top of the screen by hitting notes. Fill all three stars and you get the bonus. You can also play against a saved ghost in this mode if you don’t have friends (but then, who doesn’t?).

The thing I liked most about the game is its quirky style. I swear I was playing a Japanese import as I sometimes said to myself “WTF is going on?” as it was like there was an ex-baseball player trying to save a fan from a molten drooling golem who came to life in a theme park! That’s just crazy. Also, I kept asking myself “how does dancing help people?” which is probably a question that will never be answered. Also, it had nice anime style graphics and a very odd soundtrack as well.

-(The Graphics)-
The graphics in EBA are terrific. The game uses the same kind of manga-like 2D as Phoenix Wright, except this has even better animation. The animation doesn’t repeat like Phoenix Wright, and it looks more fluid. The game actually looked like a comic, with speech bubbles and the clips looked like a comic as the pictures were separated by white lines. Also, the game has fully animated 3D sprites on the bottom of the DS screen. You probably won’t notice, but they have smooth animation and look really stylish when dancing.

-(The Sound)-
The sound is even better than the graphics, thanks mostly to it’s incredibly quirky soundtrack. Put it this way, imagine Madonna; the Village People; Avril Lavigne; Sum 41; David Bowie and some generic punk bands thrown into the same recording studio, and you have the soundtrack to EBA. Everyone I just mentioned is featured in the soundtrack. They are all completely different, some of them did music in genres I didn’t like, and yet I loved it. It was really varied and completely crazy, so it was like a soundtrack to the world, even if some of the events could never happen ever! Also, there’s some voice clips thrown in as well, which all sound great. And the effects are good too.

-(Replay Value)-
There’s a lot of value for money here. The main two difficulty levels will take you about 7 hours to complete, but then there’s two more difficulty levels to unlock. There are some bonus songs to unlock as well. Plus, there is the insanely fun multiplayer mode to do as well. It’s just a shame there’s no Wi-Fi online play, as that could have extended the value for months. Still, it’ certainly worth the £29.99 I paid for it.

-(Score)-
Controls=10
Gameplay=9
Graphics=9
Sound=10
Replay Value=8
Overall Score=9.2

-(Ending Comments)-
So what we have here is one of the best DS game ever made! I had just as much fun with this as Phoenix Wright, Mario Kart, Hotel Dusk and New Super Mario Bros. so I think that pretty much means this takes the title. It has excellent gameplay, brilliant manga style graphics, an outstanding soundtrack and a very quirky style. Need something fun, fresh and original? Look no further-Elite Beat Agents is your ticket out of hell.

-(Where You Can Buy It)-
You can buy it from Amazon for £24.98, GAME for £29.99 and Play.com for £24.99

-(Extra Info)-
This was published by Nintendo and developed by Inis
This was released on July 13th, 2007 and is a DS exclusive

Thanks for reading. Stunt 101